The GU.PHO. Vernacular Photography Festival, promoted by the Municipality of Guiglia, confirms its collaboration with the Municipality of Bertinoro for a new edition on the Balcony of Romagna.

La stanza di Mnemosine (Mnemosyne’s Room) is the title of the exhibition that will open on Thursday, October 1, 2026, at the Bertinoro Town Hall.

OPENING PROGRAMME TO BE ANNOUNCED

The project

La stanza di Mnemosine by Alessandra Calò is part of the programme of the 21st edition of the Giornata del Contemporaneo, promoted by AMACI, and was created on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the Italian-German agreement for the recruitment and placement of Italian workers in the Federal Republic of Germany.

The story

Mnemosyne, the Greek goddess of memory, becomes here an archivist and guardian of layers of memories, capable of giving voice both to objects and to those who experienced and passed them down. The artist conceives memory not as a fixed trace, but as a constantly evolving process, intertwining archives and contemporary testimonies.

The section that opens the exhibition brings the original 1955 document into dialogue with Calò’s visual reinterpretation: period materials, photographs and private memories are reassembled into a fabric that highlights the connection between collective history and individual stories. Official memory thus opens up to a plural narrative, enriched by intimate and everyday fragments.

The section conceived as Mnemosyne’s room, on the other hand, takes on the character of a suspended space, where past and present merge through an installation that evokes the act of archiving: drawers, papers, and real or photographed objects compose a space that appears at once orderly and chaotic, much like memory itself. Accompanying visitors is a soundscape in which Mnemosyne recounts, through the testimonies she is archiving, the stories of the protagonists of the migration that began with the bilateral agreement. The voice of the goddess at work intertwines with the crackle of Radio Colonia broadcasts, the rustling of sheets of paper, the sound of a typewriter, and the noise of objects being moved in and out of boxes, creating the impression of a living archive in constant motion.

La stanza di Mnemosine is therefore a poetic device that invites us to reflect on the value of objects and their ability to preserve emotions, memories and identities, conveying the complexity of the Italian migration experience in Germany and the continuing relevance of its legacy.

The exhibition will be open to visitors during the Town Hall office opening hours:

Monday–Friday | 9:00 am–2:00 pm • Tuesday–Thursday | also 3:00–6:00 pm

The exhibition is by Alessandra Calò and curated by Giorgia Padovani.

For further information: https://gupho.art/